Respect Social Media

Social media is one the best ways for your business to advertise your products or services. You can use the power of twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram, and a million other social media platforms to share your message with the world. Have a great product that you want people to know about, start sharing your information on Social Media. Want to discuss an award your company recently received, or talk about a new special your company is offering this week, start broadcasting your message online. If you create some excitement or buzz about your product, and tease the audience with some well placed keywords, you may be surprised at how well your message is received, and more importantly, shared. The power of the internet is incredible, and you can take advantage of this with your business every single day.

Social Media also has tremendous power with people such as actors, musicians, athletes and even former athletes. Think about someone like Katy Perry, who has 53 million followers on her Twitter account. She has the ability to reach all of these people with the tap of a few key strokes on her mobile phone. The Super Bowl matchup between the Seahawks and the Broncos had 111.5 Million viewers. Perry can reach almost half of the total viewers whenever she feels the need to make a witty comment. I wonder how many companies have approached her asking if she would just tweet about a new product for a nice endorsement fee? Your social media account may not reach 53 million or 1 million followers, but you don’t have to.

If you have created a footprint on social media, with a few followers, and you continue to add interesting information, you are going to get more likes and follows as time goes on. As a business owner, if you were able to add followers on Twitter and Facebook each week, over time, you have a very specific list of people who are interested in what you do. This makes it a great and inexpensive way to improve you chances of converting more business. You are already talking to prospective clients, whenever you want to.

I titled this quick post “Respect Social Media”, because there is also another side to the story, and it has nothing to do with your business. This past weekend, I sent a Tweet to a former athlete concerning his behavior at a boy’s baseball game. I rarely use Twitter for anything other than business, and don’t recall ever Tweeting directly to one person. In this case, I was disgusted at what I witnessed, and simply picked up my phone and sent a direct Tweet. What followed was not something I expected, and it made me realize the power of social media, and the impact it has on our world.

The following morning, I had received a response back from this former athlete, with his side of the story. I sent a response to him with an image, that now has been shared all over the web.

From there, his Tweets back to me were picked up, and a story was released on Deadspin about this former athlete, and his behavior at a 10 year old baseball game. Then CBS Sports, The Today Show, Yahoo Sports, and many other online media outlets picked up the story. I literally tweeted this guy because I did not appreciate the way he acted in front of 10 year old children, and the story spun out of control.

I encourage all of the businesses that I work with to use the power of social media to create traffic for their business. It can be an amazing tool to help broadcast your message to the world in a few clicks. At the same time, be cautious about the product or service you provide, and respect social media. If you fail to take care of your customers, they may use social media to voice their opinion.